Sunday, July 13, 2014

Giants Slam Diamondbacks

Starting pitcher:
M.C. O'Connor

The World Cup is over and so is all that exhausting running around and that irritating lack of scoring. Right about the time Germany was collecting their one world championship goal Buster Posey was whacking a grand slam and Giants fans were having a much-needed cathartic moment. Madison Bumgarner added his own grand slam an inning later, and the Giants even loaded the bases again (for Joaquin Arias) in the same frame. That was the first battery in major-league history to hit grand slams in the same game. Buster and Madison each have two career slams, both of the Bumbino's coming this season. Buster had an iconic slam in the playoffs against the Reds in 2012 that I imagine none of us will ever forget. In soccer, you score a goal and you win. At least in these big-time matches. It's not so easy for the Giants. You'd think two slams would be enough to send the visitors packing, but they were pesky and chased MadBum with three in the top of the 7th. It took some strong relief to finish the job. The young southpaw's last four starts have not been up to his usual standards, but the team got a win and that's what matters the most. I expect we'll see more ace-like performances from him in the second half.

The Giants go to the All-Star Break with a 52-43 record after 95 games. The 52 wins is tied with Atlanta and St. Louis for third-best in the NL, trailing only Los Angeles and Milwaukee. Detroit, Oakland, and Los Angeles-Anaheim have more wins in the AL. The Giants .547 win percentage is tied with Atlanta for fourth-best in the NL and the eighth-best overall. San Francisco would finish with 89 wins at this pace (37-30). With 67 games remaining they have to play .600 ball the rest of the way (40-27) to get to 92 wins. The Dodgers stand atop the NL West by one game after consecutive 1-0 wins against the Padres. Their 54-43 record and .557 win percentage is the best in the league and only the AL West's A's and Angels are better.

Enjoy the Break, me buckos, relax and save your strength. It will be both tortuous and torturous from this point on.

Giants baseball resumes on Friday at 4:10 Pacific in Miami.

Lest I forget: "Go NL!"

--M.C.

p.s. Lots of great moments in today's game like Pence's catch, Pence's assist, the pickoff that was almost a double play, etc. Discuss.

5 comments:

Re: the All Star Game. Nothing to be said, unfortunately, r/t Giants participation.My complaint is 2 straight years of kissing Yankee ass, last year Rivera, this year Jeter. Sickening.I have a similar problem at the now annual ass-kissing of Jackie Robinson. Yeah, I respect what he did (as I respect the above-mentioned Yankees)but he was a fucking Dodger, so fuck him, and fuck all Yankees.Amen

It's hard to imagine being sick of Jackie Robinson, but only professional sports could pull that off. Certainly he was a pioneer and his breaking of the color line (and playing championship ball as well) was heroic. But MLB has shoved him and his legacy down our throats. I cannot stand the way people are lionized--I think it diminishes their humanity and accomplishments. Jackie was a man, he had all the flaws all men have, yet he did something great. We don't need hagiography to appreciate that. We don't need to raise him to some goofy icon status ("no one shall wear #42 again") either. Baseball, like most entertainment businesses, cares about the bottom line and not about social issues. The fact that everyone loves Jackie is a perfect excuse for them to go "all-in" on Jackie-worship and stroke themselves over how progressive they are. What's next, Jackie Theme Parks? Hop on the Racism Ride, kids, and learn all about how baseball saved America.

That's the story I heard too, but the official story that Robinson gave is that he was planning on retiring and thus found a job at an insurance firm when the trade was announced with the Giants. He informed the Giants of his plans at that point.

Now whether that's true or not, we'll probably never know, but that's what I heard as his official story of what happened.

And who knows? I mean, Marichial wore Dodger blue, so crazy things can happen, maybe Robinson did already have that job and decided to stick with that as his future instead of one more year of pro ball.

Yeah, whether or not Jackie refused to go to the Giants because they were the Giants has never been verified--at least to my knowledge. He may have balked at playing for anyone besides the Dodgers, after all he was at the end of his career and maybe didn't feel like he could pull off a "fresh start" somewhere else. It must be hard to athletes to call it quits--most of us have/had jobs we could do for decades. These guys have such a small window to be ballplayers, that's such a weird notion that your livelihood has an expiration date.